Sunday, October 21, 2012

We're Back and Ryan's Back!

It has been too long!! Yes, we all know. We have been neglecting our blog! Our poor friends who don't visit Facebook must think we've fallen off the face of the Earth! So, this week we have set a challenge to add at least one blog entry per day. We can do that with four of us blogging, right? Especially when mom sets the school lessons!

So, tonight is my first. We've had a bit of excitement since I wrote last. Ryan had some back problems, three herniated discs. We thought he might get to have surgery on them, but after three weeks of muscle relaxers and a few other prescriptions, the numbness in his leg and foot all but disappeared! We were thrilled. With that experience, though, came new knowledge of the medical world in Singapore.

So, he went in and saw an orthopedic specialist at a hospital somewhere. He had an MRI, and was diagnosed with three herniated discs. The re-check was at Mount Elizabeth, so I went along because it is about six blocks from our condo. (Ok, I admit it...I kind of feel like I am in a soap opera when I hear or go to Mt El- The halls look like the ones you see, and come on- Mount Elizabeth? A perfect name for a TV hospital.) We walked into the lobby and, wowza, there are a gajillion doctors there! I swear there are hundreds and hundreds listed on the board in the lobby. So, you have to know who you are seeing (which is difficult for us because they are mostly mandarin names. Yun Chee Ju and Ju Yun Chen are completely separate names, and you need to know the difference!) And, yes, you guessed it...Ryan' had not written down the name of his dr! But, his memory carried us through this time, and he got it right the first try. So, we went up to the floor and suite.


The clinic itself is very much like in the US. But, once we went into the exam room, the difference was apparent. The doctor actually has one exam room, and his desk is in the room (like with his phone, paperwork, computer, etc.) There is no nurse greeter, there is just the dr. Same with the one Ryan was seeing for his prescription. He walked in, and there she was at her desk.

With all of the people Ryan has seen, he does think that the medical care here is comparable to what we are use to back home. One thing that seemed different to him was that the dr suggested yoga repeatedly (and maybe that's common back home too- he's never been seen for back pain before..) And, the dr. also prescribed a vitamin supplement with the muscle relaxers. Again, in all of his ortho stuff back home- knee, ankle, shoulder, finger, he's never been prescribed vitamin supplements.

Oh, one other thing, chiropractors are looked upon as wacky here- basically, a joke. They are combined with massage and reflexology places that are on every corner, and I don't believe any of those places are regulated in any way. I mean they are all pretty sanitary as most public places are in Sg, but no standards of care at all.

One other cultural difference that Ryan has realized here is that many Asians do not approve of being on medication. When he's taken meds for his asthma or this back condition during the day, multiple Asian co-workers have inquired and cautioned him to get whatever it is taken care of and get off that medication. 

Side note:
I know Mount Elizabeth hospital pretty well because Chloe and I had been visiting the pharmacy there every two weeks. One of Ryan's prescription medications from home was controlled in Sg, so he had to go to the dr in his work building every two weeks for a new prescription until he got in to see a specialist who gives out the prescription medication. Yes, that's one of the odd things about medicine here. You don't just go to any old pharmacy wherever with your prescription. You use pharmacies when you are just looking for an OTC controlled medication, like Advil (Nurofen)-similar to what we need to do at home for cold meds. (Interestingly enough, you can get pseudoephedrine OTC not through a pharmacist here.) For pharmacist controlled meds, without a prescription, you can go into any Guardian (drug/personal care store). 

For most other prescriptions, you need to either go to the hospital pharmacy or you get the drug right from your doctor when you have your appointment. In the Mount Elizabeth pharmacy, you enter into about an 8 X 10 waiting room, put your prescription in the basket and ring the bell. One of about 15 pharmacists (mostly women, all in the same polyester uniform) comes and gets it. It takes 20-30 minutes to be filled; then they call you up. You get to squeeze through the other people waiting in the tiny room, to go up and pay for your drugs. Drugs are not any cheaper here. Because of the small space, there is no privacy. People pay a TON for their drugs. ($300-1200 were prices Chloe and I saw. Luckily, we have great coverage here!)


While I am talking about medication, I will also mention that no topical Benadryl is available in Singapore. The only thing for a rash is Calamine. With my girls' issues with allergies to pool chemicals and so many other things (thank you Moore's side!), we always had it on hand, and I didn't think to stock up on it before we traveled, like I did the Advil. So, we've been making due with Calamine, when you have no choice, the choice is made for you!

Any questions? The quiz will be on Wednesday!

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Update from Kiera and Chloe

Hey, it's Kiera! It's time for an update! First, I want to give thanks to Auntie Karin for all her help with the shipment. Beyond that, we are being busy 24/7 with chores. We aren't on vacation. We still have to do dishes, sweep and mop the floor, but it is worth it. It's amazing to even be able to take a walk here.

We found a really good Indian restaurant just taking a walk. It was an amazing restaurant. It was like in the jungle. There were fake bird baths, lions, snakes, and panthers. They even had a Tarzan swing whose legs almost hit my dad's head. My dad is happy Tarzan was fake. It was a blast and the food was good too.

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Hey, it's Chloe! We took a trip to Sentosa a few weeks ago. It's a separate island at the bottom of Singapore. To get to Sentosa we have to go to Vivo City on the MRT and ride a trolley or cable car. Sentosa is where Universal Studios is and lots of shops. For Kiera, there is a Legoland, Candylicious store, and a Hershey's World. In Hershey's there is a whole corner of Reece's Peanut Butter Cups. Also, they have a big Merlion (half lion half mermaid). It is a big deal here like the Statue of Liberty is to us. You have to climb up stairs to get to the top and come out of the mouth. That is one of our favorites. We haven't done everything on Sentosa yet but we will do more while we are here.

McKenna's Thoughts

Hey, it is McKenna finally blogging here in Singapore! For the time that we have been here, I have adjusted well. I have now taken up soccer at an Arsenal school for football players. We are starting school soon, and I think this is the only time you will here me say this, I am actually looking forward to having something to do for once.

 It is so cool to be able to experience all the different types of cultures here in Singapore. Thanks to that, I have now found my new favorite type of food, and it is Indian Cuisine. We went to an area in Singapore called Little India, and we found this restaurant called Jungle Tandoor. They made great Naan and Buttered Chicken which were my favorite. That was the BEST Indian food I think that I have ever encountered.

 It seems like we are always trying new food. We we went on a tour of Singapore with our settling in tour guide, and for lunch she said to try this really good Thai restaurant that was SUPER YUMMY!!!!:) They made really good Pad Thai. It was even better than Big Bowl! There are also many markets. They have all sorts of food from fruits and vegetables, to seafood and meat. But, there are these really smelly fruits called Durian that smell horrible and are SO GROSS!! That would be my least favorite food. Overall, I am really starting to like it here. It is a clean and very safe environment to live in. I hope you all are have a great start to the year and hope to talk to you soon!<3

- McKenna
Durian

Monday, August 20, 2012

Cairnhill Crest






Hello again! I know it has been a while since we have written. We have pretty much been in vacation mode for a while. And, the big news is that we have moved into our "permanent" residence at Cairnhill Crest (mandarin speakers pronounce this cane-hill). Cairnhill is just a few blocks away from the Orchard Road shopping district. We chose Cairnhill over a few beautiful places on the shore line, but farther away from the city, including Ryan's work at Marina Bay. Now, Ryan is just four stops away on the MRT. Of course, that is after he walks to the MRT station at Somerset (.58 km or .36 mile for those of you NOT on the metric system). It really is more than that though, because once you get to the MRT station, it can be almost as far to get to the train deck. So, we do a lot of walking here.




So, the apartment. You can visit the link to Cairnhill Crest here to read about the facilities and such. The girls love the swimming. There are three pools: the kids pool, with squirting fountains and a small water slide, a regular pool that is about 4 ft deep (no deep ends in newer pools here in Sg- law since the 2005 or so), and another pool that has a table and chairs in it (but no food and drink are allowed- go figure?), a bridge that goes over it, and a jacuzzi (with no heat). The girls love the pool with the bridge. They play all sorts of things in that pool. Their favorites are shark families and sushi chefs (they use the leaves from the area to "cook"- even though none of them like sushi!).











There is also a fitness center which McKenna has been enjoying and a Chinese pond with coy and turtles. We have names all of the turtles: Myrtle, Big Guy, Little Guy, Tiny, and Curdle. The girls love to go down and feed them bread. Chloe had Tiny eating out of her hand the other day!




So, the view itself, looking out is not great. Right across from us is a building under construction. The thing is that just about anywhere you are in Sg, there is construction of some sort. When a building gets old here, they tear it down and build a new one, and they are constantly adding on to the MRT (subway). Our first serviced apt was right next to an MRT construction site. There, they work 24 hours a day. It is loud and you hear clink clink clink right as you are trying to go to sleep. This construction, is not on such a timeline. So, they only work business hours and are quiet at night.

 We do have a bit of a view. To the left of the construction, we can see the historic district and Orchard Road in the distance. This picture shows the block out the back of the complex. It is a historic district. I LOVE walking through it each day. I will have to get closer pictures of some of the homes. They have terracotta roofs, some have gates, and they are all decorated differently with tiles and/or plants. So, we walk through these quaint streets and then by a few restaurants in the same style. Finally, POP, we are on Orchard Road with the hustle and bustle of malls, shops, and restaurants. On O.R. there are so many businesses from fruit stands, to electronics shops, to Cartier, Gucci, and Prada. At night, we can see O.R. from our apt. Being able to see the lights of the city at night was one of my must have's for an apt.

So, inside the apartment is nothing like our home. At home, we have carpet and low ceilings in most rooms. I thought my house was light, but this apartment is much lighter than our home.

This is our front door. Everyone takes their shoes off outside and leaves them in the entry. There are two apts per floor, and we have our own elevator lobby shared with the family across the hall. *They are wonderful by the way! Somi and Shareem an Indian couple from Washington D.C. have two kids- daughter-6 and Son- 3.* Security is wonderful! You can't get to our floor unless you have a key card for our floor.


We enter into the living room/dining room. The living room is to the right coming in, with the line of windows (the windows are doors.) The whole wall opens up to the balcony outside. The floor is marble...and I LOVE THAT! It keeps everything so clean! It would never work in MN in the winter without in-floor heating, but I sure love it here in my home by the equator. It looks terribly dark in these pictures because it is cloudy and the sun is going down. Usually, it is much brighter!








         

 The Master Bedroom: The hallway leading to the bedroom has three built in closets two with drawers and one with a rod. The window wall is split. Half is a door leading to a balcony and the other half is the wonderful deep-sill window that is in the rest of the apt.




The funny thing about the bedroom is that it has a sliding "window" to the master bath. So, evidently, while I am bathing, I can talk to Ryan while he is still in bed. The whole bathroom is marble!! (Well, except the tub.) The floor is black. In Sg, bathrooms, kitchens, and utility rooms are hard rooms that you step down into (about two inches) because they have drains in the floors of the rooms to catch water- brilliant for cleaning and the area right outside showers. The "thing" on the wall is a plug in for razors and a built-in hair dryer. The showers also have all been the kind with a hose that you can take down and spray with--love that! (Even our bathtub has one of those. They are wonderful for washing feet--after a city walk in sandals--and children's hair!)

Next down the hall on the left is the bomb shelter. Yes, it is a safe room required in all Sg homes since 9-11. In our home, however, it is the suitcase storage room.

This is our home school room. It has two desks, and will have a book shelf soon. It also boasts the great huge window area where the girls can use as a reading/work area with natural light.


This is one of the girls' rooms. Currently, all three are sleeping in fleece sleeping bags on two twin beds pushed together. We are anxiously waiting for our shipment from the U.S. to arrive with all of our bed linens, towels, toys, games, and home schooling supplies.








The girls use their window sills for play areas. We had to get them to move their American Girl dolls out the the sun. No tanning allowed for McKenna (the doll) or Felicity!








These little sets were a hit! They are puzzles of rooms that the girls put together. Then, they have little characters to play with the rooms as doll houses. We bought all four sets. Here are three of them.
This is McKenna's clothes' room. No one currently sleeps here.
  The Kitchen is an "L." The image to the right is the door from the main hallway. It looks like all of this is pantry, but in reality, the two left cabinets house the electrical and utilities.
To the left, the picture captures the view as we enter the kitchen. The cabinets in the last picture are on the left. We have all of the basic appliances including microwave, oven, gas stove, and dishwasher. 












Behind the kitchen is the laundry/garbage.











I really like that I can completely get rid of the garbage immediately. This handy silver contraption in the wall discards the garbage right out of our house....no bags, no mess, no packing into a can.

 


Finally...we enter what, in Sg., is termed the maid's quarters. A little, tiny room at the back of the house with a little, tiny bathroom with shower built-in. We keep our shopping cart in there and our pool bag in the sink.











So, there you have it- our new home!
It is now completely dark here. My family is down swimming, enjoying the cooler outdoor weather in darkness. (It really is not that much cooler, but at least the sun is gone.) Now that we will be starting school, we will be writing more.

I have really been on vacation and haven't been on the girls to write much either! I've read eight books since we arrived. I have NEVER had the time to do that! The girls have been reading a lot too, and we just started our first book together since we got here. We are reading, The Evolution of Capurnia Tate, and really enjoying it! We did not bring nearly enough books along with us, and so we have hit quite a few book stores. Sg. books are EXPENSIVE (like $18-25 for a kids book). I just met another mom at our home school sports day, and she introduced me to Book Depository out of the UK. It is similar to Amazon, but has free international shipping, and the book prices are more reasonable. Once our shipment gets here, we will be set for a while for books, but we will be using that site as we need to order. 

Màn Zǒu, (pronounced: mad zo- long o)
(Take Care!)
Traci

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Hello from Singapore! We have been here for almost a week, and we have seen a lot of Singapore! The weather in Singapore is cloudy, but hot. To deal with the heat, we walk through the malls whenever possible (Malls are usually the first floor in most buildings.), take handkerchiefs to dab our sweat, and drink a lot of water. 

We have walked a ton, because we don't have our own car (way, way too expensive-- in the six digits). We take the MRT (subway), that is usually pretty busy and very, very clean. The girls noted that there are no durian fruits allowed on the MRT- signs are posted- because they are a stinky, spiky fruit (and also the national fruit of Singapore).

Kiera: We went to Sentosa, an entertainment island. My favorite shops are Candylicious and Hershey's Chocolate World. The thing I most want to do there is go to Universal Studios. They have rides and my dad says they have a Transformers ride. There is a globe next to the Hershey's World that is huge. It spins and there is mist and we got to play in it. My dad said we will go there some time soon. We had to get 100 sister points in order to go and we earned them all so we get to go soon!

We looked at a lot of the things to do and there is climbing up the Merlion, going to the beach, going to see motion movies, bug and butterfly world, ziplines, and a lot of restaurants. We went down to the beach first. Chloe, McKenna, and I (Kiera) kicked the big waves and splashed ourselves. The water tastes horrible. While we were waiting for the first trolley, we saw a beautiful peacock. It was a male and it was plucking its feathers. We got off the bus at Underwater World and got shaved ice with flavoring on it. It doesn't taste the same, but it was good. We noticed when we got to the bottom of the bowl that it had tadpole eggs, worms, and other gooey things at the bottom. They were made out of gross gummy stuff. We said we saved the bottom for our dad.

After that, we saw a female peacock. It followed me. We were about to get on another trolley when we saw a sign that said Please Don't Feed Us. We Like to Hunt Ourselves. We looked up and on top of the sign there was a monkey!! We saw the trees shaking and there were two more monkeys. Chloe tried to get close to one and my mom said they are not meant to be nice. So Chloe backed away.

Sentosa was really fun. I wanted to buy candy, but my dad said maybe later. That was my favorite part about that day. I got to spend time with my family while seeing a new part of SIngapore.

Chloe: We got to the apartment really late on Thursday night. Everyone was tired but excited. We were about to start our new journey and we explored the apartment. We learned right away that the light switches are outside the doors and so are the water heaters. My parent's bedroom is huge and the kitchen is small. My room is pretty small too. McKenna, Kiera, and I all share a room. There are two closets in both rooms. We have a washer, but not a dryer so we have to hang up our clothes to dry. My suitcase is really messed up. We have a balcony in every room, but we can't go out because it is locked. The view is beautiful. I can see lots of buildings right across the street. At night it is very light out because of all the buildings. If I look down they are building a new train station and it is really noisy at night and early in the morning. My dad wants them to stop or at least not work early or late hours. We are now use to the time difference.
Sorry for the expressions girls...this photo was too fun not to post!

There is a pool right on the eighth floor! The view is great. We also eat breakfast on the eighth floor. At breakfast they serve watermelon sometimes, but my favorite is the toast- buttered toast. They serve eggs every day. They are scrambled and too creamy. They also have apple juice that is to die for. Some people eat cream of mushroom soup, watery oatmeal, brown beans, and different kinds of dumplings. My family likes to eat the toast, cereal, and fruit. Sometimes we like the tomato noodles and pizza bites. McKenna has hot chocolate every day. As you can see everything is different.


I hope you are doing well. I hope to see you when I get back. I miss all of you a lot. I will talk to you again in the next blog.

Traci: As you can see, the girls are acclimating themselves to the new and different life. It was fun to discuss what they would write about. They had so many things to choose from! McKenna will be writing her own posts, while I will supervise the other two girls' writings. They are both very excited to write again.

I know this is a very long first post, but we purposefully went almost completely offline and focused on becoming a family again for the time that Ryan was off. It was very nice to spend time together again. In five days, Ryan showed us everything he had scoped out. Basically, everything is different! Since Ryan has lived in Chicago, it wasn't as big of a change for him. But, the girls and I have never lived in a big city, so it is all new.

I had read in expat blogs that the people of Singapore are rude. We have had the opposite experience. Men are giving the girls and I seats on the MRT, and we even had an old Singaporean man stop us on the sidewalk, ask us where we were from and gave us advice on sights to see.

It's very nice to have someone come in and clean for us every day. We just do our laundry  and straighten up. I will certainly be spoiled once we move into our apartment.  We are going to look at apartments on Monday and Tuesday next week. That will be interesting! We start at 10AM (The time for everything here. Nothing opens or gets going before that. Ryan doesn't go to work until 9AM.), and go all day. They are "sending a car for us."



I will be posting an album of more photos on Facebook with many more interesting sights!


We are so happy to be a family again!!

Traci

Monday, July 9, 2012

"Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be...Close your eyes let your spirit start to soar, and you'll live as you've never lived before."  ~Erich Fromm


Welcome friends, family, and other folks. You join us just as our story begins...a family having been blessed with a chance to journey thru a strange new world~ Singapore.


July 8 no 9, 2:03 AM
Location: Delano, MN
Details: Three children and a dog sprawled out around the room among the crates, open suitcases, and piles.


So, one more night before the day we have been waiting for, for what seems like an eternity. When Ryan left for Singapore on May 1, we believed we would be apart for about a month. I've noticed that things seem worse when you've prepared yourself for something else. What I mean is~ this separation has been a killer because it has been extended and extended, again and again. 


Let me regress for a moment. For those of you who do not know the story of how we got to where we are right now, let me fill you in. About a year ago, Ryan was updating his Accenture profile and came across the question: Would you entertain international projects? At the time, he read it out loud in our quiet bedroom in Delano. We agreed that he would check the yes box. This decision was like checking the: Would you like to be a donor? box on our driver's licenses. Sure, I can do that-- in theory. I drifted off to sleep and dreamed of spending my days in little coffee houses in Italy. I liked coffee in my dream for those of you wondering. And, I enjoyed the views and the gondola ride until the trickling water in my dream woke me up. 

Fast forward to January of this year, when an email came across Ryan's inbox from a project in Singapore looking for experienced people in Ryan's talent area to work on a project. We laughed about it and decided it wasn't the time. After all, we were very involved in hockey, and the spring soccer season was coming. And, I mean really....Singapore??? So, he said, "No thank you, " and we moved on. Two weeks passed, and he received an email requesting a phone call. It became apparent very quickly that this project in Singapore was not just looking for talent...they were looking for Ryan. Over the course of the next month or so, the question of Singapore became a serious one. Ryan had just recovered from a second collapsed lung and was on his doctor's, wife's, and senior manager's do not fly list. Yet, Singapore was calling. 


Here is where we notice the differences in how Ryan and Traci deal with big decisions-- Ryan ignores them until they fester and begin to pus, and eventually they blow up and he has to deal with them. Traci, on the other hand, investigates, ok, and maybe, just a little bit, obsesses. Let's just say, thank goodness our internet isn't pay per view, because we would not have made it through the first night. I read expat websites, information about Singapore's bathrooms (yes, a first search, thank you very much), kitchens, cleanliness standards, food, people, language, schools, transportation, housing, and most of all Accenture's policies and procedures for international assignments.


Eventually, we hit the maximum overload on our information gathering, and the direct question was asked, "Will you accept a long term overseas assignment in Singapore for a year?" While it was still unknown whether I could get a leave of absence, we decided the opportunity this choice would bring for ourselves and our girls was too great to pass up. When life throws something like this your path, it's time to be open and accepting.


So, before long, Ryan was packed and on his way half way around the world (literally- you can fly either way and it is very close to the same time) to a country where he knew no one.


Our separation got extended after BHP decided to cut everyone from the project and postpone it for six months or so. Luckily, after some very scary days, Ryan reported that he was approved to stay in the interim and the eventual return to the project. But, the girls and I had to wait for the new interim project to be approved and assigned a charge-to number before we could make travel arrangements. After all, we needed to pay for our gold-plated airfares! 


This is where I decided that the saying, Good things come to those who wait, is not really reality. It is actually, Good things come to those who wait, and wait, and wait, and- yes you guessed it- wait some more.


As of now, we have known for about 12 days that we would be flying on Tuesday, July 10. 

The girls and I have decided that we can wait to see Singapore....it is Ryan that we are most excited to see right now. We have missed him. Even when he has traveled in the past, he has remained very tuned in and active as a husband and father. This separation has made that very difficult. We are ready to be a family again. 



I am going to get some sleep now that you know how we got to where we are. The girls and I will share a little bit about what we are thinking before we take off on Tuesday.


Nightie Night Friends.